Greenpeace Canada celebrates northern whale hunt; sights set on blocking oil development

An environmentalist organization famous for confronting and interrupting whale hunts around the world has thrown its support behind one taking place in northern Canada, though it may have something to do with blocking oil industry developments, rather than an internal softening of its wildlife protection mandate.

Greenpeace Canada recently announced it was in full support of a traditional whale hunt conducted by Inuit fishermen from Clyde River, Nunavut, adding that the stance is laid out in the group's Policy on Indigenous Rights.

"Greenpeace respects the rights of Clyde River and other Indigenous communities to sustainable, traditional hunting and fishing,” said Greenpeace Canada’s Arctic campaigner Farrah Khan in a statement.

But Greenpeace’s outright approval of the whale hunt raises questions about a more publicized issue – the international opposition to Canada’s seal hunt. Greenpeace Canada has been at the forefront of groups that have pushed for a ban on sealing – a stance that has brought significant financial and public hardships to indigenous communities that held traditional hunts for the purpose of subsistence.

It seems on the outset that Greenpeace Canada and Nunavut’s Inuit communities would make strange bedfellows on this issue, though it seems there are larger matters at play.

As the National Post reported this weekend, six boats hunted and killed a pregnant bowhead whale on Aug. 3 – the community's first such hunt in more than a century.

Though that may be a bit of a misnomer. It was Clyde River's first hunt in 100 years, but northern communities have held annual bowhead whale hunts since the late 1990s, when the federal government overturned a previous ban as part of the Nunavut and Inuvialuit Land Claim Agreements.

The Clyde River hunt is one of three permitted this year. That the community of 900 was given a permit is surely a big deal for them, but if it was not Clyde River it would have been another community getting the nod.

Still, it seems odd that the hunt for a mammal considered endangered received public support from Greenpeace itself.

As Farrah Khan said in her statement, "Massive commercial whale hunts depleted bowhead whale populations in Baffin Bay and distressed many communities that rely on whales for subsistence. It has taken many years for whale populations to begin to recover."

She went on to state that Baffin Bay, the area where the hunt occurred, is a "critical habitat for bowhead whales" and should be protected from recently-approved oil and gas testing. In other words, if whale hunting in Baffin Bay is good, then oil and gas developments are bad.

"We urge the National Energy Board and the Federal government to protect this region from seismic testing and oil drilling operations. It would be a tragedy to see whale populations decimated and traditional practices devastated once again," she said.

If Greenpeace's position statement makes it seem they support Indigenous Rights because it benefits their anti-oil development stance, it's because that is at least partially the case. Greenpeace Canada's Policy on Indigenous Rights notes that point directly.

The policy adds that the group is aware of "the great potential for environmental justice as a result of better alliances between environmentalists (including Greenpeace) and Indigenous Peoples". Makes sense, on that point the two groups surely agree.

But Greenpeace Canada has a complicated relationship with the country's northern community, specifically its history of opposing the country's seal hunt. Their opposition may have been focused on commercial sealing ventures but did admitted damage to traditional indigenous hunts.

"Our campaign against commercial sealing did hurt many, both economically and culturally. The time has come to set the record straight," Greenpeace Canada executive director Joanna Kerr confessed in a Nunatsiaq News editorial in June.

"In the eight months since I took on the challenging role of executive director for Greenpeace Canada, one issue has come up again and again from staff across the country: a deep desire to make amends with Indigenous peoples for past mistakes, to decolonize ourselves, and to better communicate our policies and practices going forward."

The editorial confesses to playing an accidental role in demonizing the indigenous seal hunt. Though as the National Post notes, northern community leaders have been hesitant to reach out for the olive branch – reasonable considering the hardships the international sealing opposition has caused them.

Still, Greenpeace Canada’s sights are set on bigger fish, with the launch of a pointed campaign against the National Energy Board's recent decision to allow oil exploration in the northern waterway. There's no better ally for them than Canada's Inuit communities. Even if that means publicly supporting one whale hunt while continuing to intervene in hunts elsewhere.

Strange bedfellows, indeed.